The Stepford Wives

On arrival in Stepford, Joanna Eberhart (Katharine Ross) starts to notice something strange about the town’s women. They all seem perfectly poised, flawlessly beautiful and obsessed with housework—a parody of femininity. As Joanna attempts to settle in, she befriends the only other person in town who seems to be like her, Bobby Markowe (Paula Prentiss), and together they start to explore what is happening to the women of Stepford. The Stepford Wives (1975) is a horror film about replacing women, responding to the concerns of second-wave feminism epitomised by Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963), the inspiration for Ira Levin’s 1972 source novel. Fifty years after its release, its themes of control over women’s bodies remain pertinent in a world of online performative portrayals of the #tradwife and the partial reversal of the provisions established by Roe v. Wade (1973). Drawing on new archival research, Paul Moody explores the tensions that played out during the film’s production, including the firing of lead actors and clashes between the director, Bryan Forbes, and the screenwriter, the Academy Award-winning William Goldman—and argues that the real story of Stepford is the role played by the various women involved in the film’s production, many of whom also have been omitted from the narratives told about the movie and the indelible legacy it has left on popular culture.